I Told You So

Way back on January 16, I spun out the reasons why I thought Donald Trump could win all the marbles.  It looks like I was at least close to being right and we will see if he in fact does.  I correctly assessed voter displeasure with the Republican Establishment and the Washington Elite.  Despite a field of 17 candidates and the headwinds of a MSM that painted him as an uncouth bigot, Trump secured the Republican nomination without the floor fight or other melee that had been predicted.  Sure, the Establishment took a stab at changing the rules and there was the Ted Cruz nonendorsement, but the convention was, I thought, reasonably successful, especially given dire predictions.

Trump made his case, and re-introduced himself to the American people in his acceptance speech which the Democrats criticized as "dark" and "pessimistic" and designed to scare the American people.  Well, we do have plenty to be anxious about--- a struggling economy, $18 trillion in debt, foreign foes throwing their weight around- ISIS, Iran, China, North Korea and Russia.  On top of it, we have had several instances of police officers gunned down in targeted assassinations.  Most Americans believe we are headed in the wrong direction.  If he is playing to fear, Trump is capturing the mood of the country at the moment.  But allow me to briefly comment on the convention.

What I liked about the convention:

• Trump correctly stated the primary purpose of government --to keep its citizens safe from foreign and domestic enemies that would harm us.  And he correctly stated that if government does not accomplish this aim, nothing else much matters.   On the home front, people need to be able to go about their business without fear.  The attacks by radical Islam on our soil have either been denied (workplace violence) or downplayed by the Obama administration.  Trump understands that our social fabric will break down if police remain under attack and are demonized by the federal government. For America to flourish, domestic and international order needs to be maintained and right now, it is breaking down in both arenas.
  
• Trump's line, "I am your voice" resonated.  American citizens have had too many edicts imposed on them without any voice at all.  Gay marriage was not decided by a vote.  Transgenders bathroom rights were also imposed by the federal government.  The Iranian deal (a treaty, in my view) was not signed off on by the peoples' representatives--in fact, material provisions were hidden from us.  The provisions of TPP have also been nontransparent.   President Obama has tried to avoid Congress in implementing his vision of an immigration policy.  The policy of "pen and phone" and legislating through regulatory bodies has taken "We the People" out of the equation in many significant areas. Obama has treated Congress as if they sprouted up spontaneously and was not duly elected. Whether Trump follows through or not remains to be seen, but the American people have been voiceless.

• Putting America first.  That is the president's job.  He is our advocate on the world stage and shouldn't be acting as Secretary General of the U.N. By definition, he is an American partisan. We have had nearly eight years of someone whose first instincts are to apologize for America and to reduce America's influence.
  
• Trump's kids.  His children stole the show.  Poised, articulate, genuine sounding, they were his best advertisement.  He has done something right to rear these children.  Ivanka's comments about working in his office were particularly poignant and said something about the values he tried to instill in them.  Many entrepreneurs still adhere to an informal policy of primogeniture but her comments dispelled that notion.

What I didn't like about his speech:

• Protectionism. There is no evidence to suggest that trade barriers are good for our overall economy and Smoot-Hawley should give anyone pause.  I understand the need to get a better bargain, but curtailing trade would be terrible for the world economy.  Trump's position on this goes against every bone in my body and I can only hope that he reverses position if he gets elected.
  
• NATO commitments.  His statements regarding the conditionality of defending NATO members is reckless and harmful.  Yes, other NATO members need to be browbeaten from time to time to increase their financial commitment.  It is true that over much of the postwar period, many European countries safely built their generous welfare states under the United States umbrella.  But with Putin lusting after the Baltics, ISIS launching attacks frequently, and now Turkey rapidly turning into a tyrannical Islamic state, NATO needs to be strengthened and LED, not dismantled.
  
• What he didn't say.  Trump didn't talk about the overreach of the regulatory state or tax reform, the deficit, shrinking government or federalism--all major issues that are vital to the vibrancy of our country. 

Trump (or his daughter) for the first time in memory addressed issues of LGBT rights, women's issues, and minority issues.  Republicans heretofore didn't even talk about them.

It is a long time until November. International events will certainly play a role and positions may change, but Trump is out of the gate and has gotten much farther than any of the "experts" predicted while the Republican Establishment is still staring at its shoetops.

It Matters

The dust up over Melania's Trump's plagiarized paragraph in her opening night speech has been dismissed by Republicans and the Trump campaign on a variety of fronts.  Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort denied the charge and then went on the offensive, claiming that, "This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton she seeks out to demean her and take her down."  This clumsy denial and attack is exactly the kind of response that the Trump campaign is running AGAINST.  Manafort's response was, well, quite Clintonian.  Deny. Deny. Deny.  Even when the evidence is incontrovertible.  No literate person with even a third grade reading comprehension level can read those two paragraphs and come to the conclusion that they are not identical.  Melania made things even worse by claiming that she wrote the speech.  No one believes that either.  Other Republican commentators dismissed the unforced error by pointing to the incidents where Obama borrowed words and contrasted her mistake with Hillary's blatant falsehoods.  These are weak defenses and this incident is more important that Republicans want to admit.

First, Mrs. Trump's speech completely blew an opportunity to control the narrative and differentiate the Trump campaign from the Obamas.  Trump has run on a them of putting America first and the criticism from the right of Barack and Michelle is that the Obamas do not have the love of country that other first couples have had.   The president has consistently criticized America abroad and Michelle's infamous quote, "the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," raised the ire of many Americans.  As an immigrant that is proud of the opportunity that America afforded her, Melania was in a position to make the case that America is ready for a first couple that understands the American narrative and is ready to move away from a couple that many believe carry an underlying resentment for this country.  The gaffe dilutes this message.

Second, this is a major gaffe and an indication of a system failure.  Somewhere in the system, quality control failed. Every person's message must be consistent with the themes of the campaign--especially one as close to Donald as his spouse.  A large proportion of the electorate still has misgivings about Trump.  He does not have a strong ground organization.  He has spent little money on advertising.  And he still has filled in few details about what his policy proposals will actually look like.  While it is true that this particular blunder will likely be forgotten as the campaign heats up, I believe that it is a sign of real weakness in his organization.  One of Trump's claims is that his is a businessman and knows how to run things.  But the ugly truth is that Trump's campaign organization failed his own wife and left her exposed to mocking and ridicule on her big opening night.

Republicans are like a football team playing on the road.  When a football team plays on the road, the crowd is against them, they are in an unfamiliar place, the refs are often against them--they are simply not going to get close calls.  Most of the time, they have to execute at a much higher level than they do at home and cannot afford major gaffes, especially early in the game.  The media will magnify them and, like home town refs, will make the call against the visiting team.

Many on the Republican side are dismissing this screw up as a one-off.   But the response of the campaign team and the fact that it left Melania exposed are indications that this was a bigger blunder out of the gate than Republicans assume.

Team Trump fumbled the opening kickoff.

Convulsions

The past few weeks have seen turmoil like we have not seen since 1968 and with the Republican convention coming up, it does not appear that it will abate.   We have seen terror attacks in Turkey and France, shooting of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and perhaps the biggest setback in U.S. foreign policy since the fall of the Shah—a failed coup in Turkey.

The public statements of our leaders have made things immeasurably worse.  The day before the Dallas shooting decried the “systemic racism” in law enforcement (just as he declared ISIS “contained” the day before the Paris attacks, and then used the memorial service in Dallas, in part to advance his political agenda.    And he met with Black Lives Matter leaders for three hours in the White House – the same group that has been publicly calling for the death of cops and celebrating when it happens.  Donald Trump inexplicably praised Saddam Hussein for using gas on terrorists (never mind the collateral damage).  Hillary Clinton contradicted James Comey’s findings, stuck to her already discredited story and claimed that she did jeopardize national security.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke with protocol to condemn Donald Trump’s candidacy, a move that is highly inappropriate.  And in a statement that was as anti-Churchillian as one can get, the French prime minister responded to the truck attack in Nice by stating, “Times have changed and we should learn to live with terrorism.” Gulp.

With the world in chaos and our domestic fabric fraying at the seams,  it appears that we could not find a single Western leader anywhere that could find the right words, do the right thing, send the appropriate message, and not use events to advance his or her own agenda.

Except one.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown showed us what leadership is all about.   Throughout this crisis, Brown has stepped up and in a calm and firm manner consistently found appropriate words that were comforting, calming and designed not to inflame an already volatile situation.   He comforted the families of the fallen officers, “we are your family now,”  and refused to be drawn into policy decisions that are not his to make, telling Jake Tapper that he was going to punt the question of gun control back to him.  He appropriately signaled and challenged politicians and the Black Lives Matter members to take ownership of the issue, telling the politicians, “we are asking the cops to do too much in this country.”   He obliquely challenged the president, “We don’t feel much support these days." 

Brown also challenged BLM but in a positive way and without being combative, "Get off the protest line and apply for a job. We're hiring.  We'll give you an application.  We'll help you resolve some of the problems you're protesting about." 

After the last few weeks of chaos and bloodshed both here and abroad with our leaders seemingly clueless, inappropriate or saying and doing things to make matters worse, one leader has stepped up to remind us of what leadership looks like.

If David Brown decides to run for office, I’d be on board.

One Up, One Down

Two seemingly unrelated events occurred back to back which will have an enormous impact on democracy, government accountability, and the rule of law.  

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.  Despite meeting each and every element of 793(f) of Title 18 of the federal penal code, Hillary Clinton will not be recommended for prosecution by FBI Director James Comey.   While Comey found that Hillary was “extremely careless” in her handling of the email, somehow that extreme carelessness was a smidgen short of the “gross negligence” that the statute requires.  Worse, Comey spent a great deal of time talking about a lack of intent, although “gross negligence,” and not “intent” is the standard written into the statute.  (See Andrew McCarthy’s  National Review column http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook).  Justice Scalia must be rolling over in his grave as prosecutorial activism has supplanted judicial activism as a means to a result.   And throwing even more suspicion on this outcome was Bill Clinton’s “chance” meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch just a few days before, where for 30 minutes, the two exchanged pleasantries over “golf” and “grandchildren.”  This all smacks of Putinism, and once again, Hillary slips out from being held to account for her behavior –behavior which exposed classified information and may have endangered U.S. agents and their sources.   Comey’s decision reinforces the view that “laws are for little people,” and that we are being governed by a political elite that create rules for us, and from which they are exempt, even when that bad behavior is violative of the laws passed by the People’s representatives and endangers national security.   We have now seen that we can have sanctuary cities where existing immigration laws are unenforced, where the I.R.S. can be used as a tool to harass political enemies with impunity, and where a public servant can blatantly violate laws specifically written to protect American lives, and there are no consequences.  Most egregiously, the nation’s top prosecutor can meet privately and secretly with a material witness just days before the FBI’s determination.    Taken together, the whole sordid episode looks something more like Putin’s Russia than the republic envisioned by the Founders.

But just a week earlier, the British took affirmative steps to make their government and the rules they live by more accountable to the people.  Despite all of the caterwauling about leaving the EU, and the charges of xenophobia and bigotry that supposedly underpinned the “Leave”movement, Brexit is a significant, courageous step toward bringing back government accountability.   Sure, unfettered immigration was a major issue for the British decision to exit the EU.  But a second and important issue is accountability.  As Pat Condell so eloquently put it in his impassioned plea (patcondell.net), the EU (like the U.S. regulatory bodies) has enormous power and authority, accountable essentially to no one to write rules and regulations that bind the British people.  And the British people had no ability to vote these people out of office.  And regulators do what they do and that is to regulate.  The Brits, seeing Brussels regulate things as inane as the curvature of bananas, said, “enough.”   Despite the hysterical warnings from the Left of the potential economic consequences of the pullout, the British people decided to wrest control over their own borders and over rulemaking back from the central authorities in Brussels.  While Brexit creates some uncertainty, the actual effect is not likely to be material over the long run.  London with still be a financial center, British companies will still trade with other European companies and others, and Great Britain will still be an important ally in NATO.   On balance, it will be a good thing for the British people.  It restores their voice in their own affairs and that, I  believe, is worth the tradeoff.

But I see these two events on two different continents—Brexit and the Clinton investigation as separate fronts in the same struggle in the West, and they actually mirror each other.  These are battles over putting decision making power back where it belongs—in the hands of the People through their elected representatives and making sure that political leaders are accountable to the people, transparent, and not above the law.

The British people saw their voice taken away and through the EU had delegated to unaccountable bureaucratic rulemakers in Brussels that were dictating how they should live.  Likewise, in America, we have had vast social and economic changes dictated to us in which we had no voice at all.   Local democratic decisions over gay marriage were rejected and that issue was essentially decided by a single individual.  Gay marriage was followed immediately by a directive to force schools to make available bathrooms and lockerooms to transgenders – again, taking it out of the hands of local authorities.  On another important issue—immigration, the Obama administration has repeatedly tried to avoid the democratic process with his “pen and phone.”   His administration has attempted to kill entire industries—coal and electronic cigarettes by regulating them out of business, and again, the people have had no say in it.   Through HUD, he has even attempted to dictate what our neighborhood will look like.    The two most significant pieces of legislation passed during his administration—Dodd Frank and the Affordable Care Act were not so much laws as outlines for a regulatory scheme that was to be written.  Again, out of the public eye, subject to no vote by our representatives and granting unknown, unaccountable regulators wide authority to impose his or her own will on us without any cost/benefit analysis or public scrutiny.  Under Obama, it’s been regulators gone wild.  Great Britain has rejected nonaccountable, nondemocratic lawmaking and has pulled this authority closer to home.

The failure to recommend indictment of Clinton was indeed a setback for government accountability and the rule of law.  That a top government official (who is also seeking to be the nation’s leader) entrusted with the most sensitive secrets of the government was so intent on not being transparent that she jeopardized national security and endangered peoples’ lives will not be held to account is a huge blow to our system and the rule of law.

In this round, the British were victorious in their efforts to make government more accountable, transparent and democratic.  America lost this round.